In some instances, happily, the clients know exactly what they want. This was one of those occasions. 

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This city-fringe bungalow extension for a design enthusiast and family would be semi-open rather than open plan. Corners would be important, because they are the places where good conversation happens. There would be clear visual connections from front of house right through to the green oasis and pool out back. And rustic brick – to add character inside and out – complemented with beautiful colours and rich textures.

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The resulting design took an ‘L’ shaped plan – with a long, linear kitchen forming the ‘stem’ of the letter (in a typographic sense), directing views through a large fixed-pane window right out to the pool.

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This is a room for a gathering family – and a place for good bonding in more than one sense. The space is organised around a meticulously detailed island crafted from stack-bonded brick, patterned with verticals and headers, and topped with a thick slab of magnificent quartzite. The room’s walls are also brick – although a horizontal stretcher bond, for contrast and to elongate the spatial proportions.

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The shape of the plan accommodates the client’s request for spaces that provide gathering options for the family as the kids get older. It is open yet it is also semi-enclosed, with easy transitions from inside to out across a courtyard finished with modernist-referencing ‘crazy paving’, and a carefully detailed battened cedar eave that wraps the roof edge around a corner, culminating in a wall that delineates the old part of the house from the new.